The Father of Lies

I taught history for about 5 years in several schools across the country. One of the things I covered in my lectures was the importance, during war time, of utilizing propaganda in such a way as not only to garner as much popular support as possible for whatever cause was being pushed, but as well the use of disinformation in weakening the enemy’s position. Of course, the most useful way of injecting disinformation was to use a reliable source, someone that the enemy would believe, as the vehicle.

I would explain it to my students like this: “Let’s say that you wanted to poison someone. How do you do it? Do you put a steaming goblet of hemlock on the table, with a skull and bones picture on it and words printed below it that spell “poison?” No, what you do is find out what your enemy likes to eat or drink, and you mix that poison into it in such a way that he won’t suspect anything until it’s too late.”

Now, I know I wrote that essay a month or so ago entitled Rush Limbaugh and Other False Prophets, in which I swore I would never listen to him again. And I’ve been good to my word. It’s been over a month and I haven’t listened to him once. But today, I was driving, and I turned on the radio and hit the scan button in search of something to hear, and low and behold, it landed right on the false prophet himself, who I now call the Father of Lies. I would have immediately changed the channel, the way I do when I’m on the internet and someone has been kind enough to send me a disguised e-mail that contains pornography, but as I reached for the button, I heard him saying the names “Perle, Wolfowitz, Feith, and Abrams.” I let it stay for a minute.

His topic was the fact that the Neo-Cons, as these men are called, are Jewish, and that they are all important advisors to President Bush and big-time supporters of Israel. The angle of Limbaugh’s argument was that the media was doing the outrageous thing of calling into question the possible conflict of interest in having men of the Jewish faith, supporters of Israel, advising Bush on matters having to do with the Middle-East. Limbaugh went so far as to say that anyone suggesting that a conflict of interest existed was anti-Semitic.

Now imagine the following as a parallel situation: It’s the trial of John Gotti, mobster of Italian descent, head of the Gambino crime family. Let’s pretend that the judge and jury are made up of Italians who don’t think that men like John Gotti are that bad, that they’ve been given a “bum rap.” What are the odds that Gotti is going to go to jail for his crimes? Better yet, what kind of a lunatic wouldn’t see the obvious conflict of interest?

As I listened to the Father of Lies, almost breaking a tooth in the process of clenching my jaw muscles, I reached for my cell phone. I knew the odds of getting through were literally a million to one, given the size of his daily audience. Imagine my surprise then when some guy in a heavy New York accent says to me “Whaddya wanta say ta Rush?”

I hadn’t been prepared for this. When the phone had begun ringing, I thought I had dialed the wrong number. I sat there for a second, thinking, and then gave him my thought. He told me to hold on, he was going to put me right through.

I looked at the clock, there were only about 15 minutes remaining on the show. I started thinking “Okay, the reason he’s putting me on in front of all the other people who have been waiting for hours is because he wants to make a fool of me, given the position that I stated to him.” I realized the damage that someone like Rush can do to the anti-war cause by making someone like me look foolish, and so I started to panic a little. I’d witnessed it before. People who have called before on various points got flustered at being on the show, and he would make it worse by badgering them, laughing, or calling them “kooks.” If I didn’t say the right thing, I would just validate his point. At that point, I just started to pray, remembering the words that Our Lord gave us.

“He who hears you, hears me.”

“I hope that includes me,” I answered.

Right after finishing a few prayers, my turn came up.

“Mark, from Cincinnati, you’re on the Rush Limbaugh program.”

My immediate words were to this effect. “Rush, your position that we should not consider the fact that these advisors of Bush are Jewish and supporters of Israel is ridiculous. If Bush had staffed his cabinet with Muslims, and as a result had adopted an anti or at least less favorable stance towards Israel, you would be having fits and calling into question the “undue Muslim influence” that was guiding Bush’s policies.”

He answered my words with an evasion. “That’s a hypothetical impossibility, ” so it won’t be discussed,” in reference to the idea that Bush would have staffed his cabinet with Muslims.

I must admit, I was a little surprised at this. I had never really seen an evasion by him of this sort. We bantered about a little bit more, and in due time he laid the bait for me that Israel firsters always do when cornered, which is, get the guy to say something so that he can be accused of being anti-Jewish. His bait went like this: “What possible benefit to Israel can there be in having men like the Neo-Cons in Bush’s White House? What’s the strategy?”

I knew I had to be careful.

My answer was to the effect that having all Israel’s enemies brought to heal should be obvious in its benefits, particularly when she didn’t have to expend one drop of Israeli blood, or fork over one shekel for it. He grudgingly agreed that there was some benefit to it, but not much. I continued by pointing out to him that it was pointless to make the argument against what that the rest of the world already knew. My suggestion to him was to read just a few of the daily newspapers printed in Israel that don’t make any pretense about hiding the fact that men like Wolfowitz and the others are doing the bidding of Israel, and that George Bush is being led around like a dog on a leash by them.

I knew he would be hanging up on me soon, so I tried it again. “Rush, if the administration were full of Muslims in advisory positions, and Bush took a view that was pro-Arab, wouldn’t you call into question the obvious conflict of interest?”

His answer was the same as before. “An impossible hypothetical, so we won’t go there,” and hung up.

My friends, this little episode is so small in its comparison to what this man and others like him do everyday that it is almost not worth mentioning. But let it be considered that these men, Limbaugh, Liddy, Hannity, O’Reilly, Savage, et al, are more dangerous than men like George Bush and his entourage could ever be, because George Bush would have no power over the American people were it not for men like them. They give him his power, by acting as the False Prophets described in the Book of the Apocalypse. And it is these men, I believe, against whom we should concentrate our efforts. I don’t mean “seminar calling” as Limbaugh refers to those who time and again oppose him on issues he supports. Just tell people, as many as you can.

Remember what we discussed at the beginning of this essay, killing your enemy by hiding the poison in something that looks appetizing? The ingesting of that poison into our political system would not be possible if it were not for the sweet tasting lies of these men, each one in his own way, a Father of Lies.

Mark Glenn is an American and former high school teacher turned writer / commentator. He contributed above article to Media Monitors Network (MMN).

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